5 Pax met upstairs at Summit Coffee in Davidson for the newest starfish of the Toby Talks AO for mental health. We kicked things off with a sentence from Brené Brown's latest book, Atlas of the Heart:
When we name an emotion or experience, it doesn't give that emotion or experience more power, it gives US more power.
This statement is a riff on a phrase coined by Dr. Dan Siegel, "if you can name it, you can tame it", which says that if you pause for a second to identify the feeling you're feeling (angry, anxious, sad, frustrated, stressed, etc.), your brain shifts out of fight/flight/freeze and into a more rational state, allowing you to calm yourself down.
A common theme in these morning conversations has been the prevalence of stress and anxiety in all of our lives, our responses to those stimuli, and the impact those responses have on the people we care about in our lives (both positive and negative). If we can be more present, self-aware, and in the moment, we can better manage these stressors.
Tied into this is how those of us who have children can model these healthy behaviors in our interactions with those around us, since very commonly our parents did not have the same tools to model those behaviors throughout our childhoods. There's a reason this book is a #1 bestseller on Amazon.
Finally, as the third week of Toby Talks mental workouts comes to a close, all present acknowledged the benefit this has provided for those who have been able to attend. This has been a welcome addition to the F3LKN arsenal.